out by the lily-pads according to the sinuous fantasies of their growth. My saurian, when he desires to sleep, has but to lie down anywhere: he will find marvelous mosses for his mattress beneath him; his sheets will be white lily-petals; and the green disks of the lily-pads will straightway embroider themselves together above him for his coverlet.

He never quarrels with his cook, he is not the slave of a kitchen, and his one housemaid — the stream — forever sweeps his chambers clean. His conservatories there under the glass of that water are ever and without labor filled with the enchantments of strange under-water growths; his parks and his pleasure-grounds are bigger than any king's. Upon my saurian's house the winds have no power, the rains are only a new delight to him and the snows he will never see. Regarding fire, as he does not employ its slavery, so he does not fear its tyranny. Thus, all the elements are the friends of my saurian's house. While he sleeps he is being bathed. What glory to awake sweetened and freshened by the sole careless act of sleep!

Lastly, my saurian has unnumbered mansions, and can change his dwelling as no human householder may; it is but a fillip of his tail, and lo! he is established in another place as good as the last ready furnished to his liking.

For many miles together the Ocklawaha is a river without banks, though not less clearly defined as a stream for that reason. The swift, deep current meanders between tall lines of trees; beyond these, on each side, there is water also,-a thousand shallow rivulets lapsing past the bases of multitudes of

trees. Along the immediate edges of the stream every tree-trunk, sapling, stump, or other projecting coign of vantage is wrapped about with a closegrowing vine. At first, like an unending procession of nuns disposed along the aisle of a church these vine figures stand.

But presently, as one journeys, this nun-imagery fades out of one's mind, and a thousand other fancies float with ever-new vine-shapes into one's eyes. One sees repeated all the forms one has ever known, in grotesque juxtaposition. Look! here is a great troop of girls, with arms wreathed over their heads, dancing down into the water; there the vines hang in loops, in pavilions, in columns, in arches, in caves, in pyramids, in harps and lyres, in globular mountain-ranges, in pagodas, domes, minarets, belfries, draperies, fish, dragons.

* * * *

The edges of the stream are further defined by flowers and water-leaves. The tall, blue flags; the ineffable lilies sitting on their round lily-pads like white queens on green thrones; the tiny stars and long ribbons of the water-grasses; the pretty phalanxes of a species of "bonnet" which from a long stem that swings off down-stream along the surface sends up a hundred little graceful stemlets, each bearing a shield-like disk and holding it aloft as the antique soldiers held their bucklers to form the testudo, or tortoise, in attacking. All these border the river in infinite varieties.

And then, after this day of glory, came a night of glory. Down in these deep-shaded lanes it was dark indeed as the night drew on.

The stream

which had been all day a baldric of beauty, sometimes blue and sometimes green, now became a black band of mystery. But presently a brilliant flame flares out overhead: they have lighted the pine-knots on top of the pilot-house.

Startled birds suddenly flutter into the light, and after an instant of illuminated flight melt into the darkness. From the perfect silence of these short flights one derives a certain sense of awe. Mystery appears to be about to utter herself in these suddenly illuminated forms, and then to change her mind and die back into mystery.

Now there is a mighty crack and crash: limbs and leaves scrape and scrub along the deck; a little bell tingles; we stop. In turning a short curve, or rather doubling, the boat has run her nose smack into the right bank, and a projecting stump has thrust itself sheer through the starboard side. Out, Dick! out, Henry! Dick and Henry shuffle forward to the bow, thrust forth their long white pole against a tree-trunk, strain and push and bend to the deck as if they were salaaming to the god of night and adversity, our bow slowly rounds into the stream, the wheel turns, and we puff quietly along.

a mal' ga ma' tion, a blending.
ap' per tain' ing, belonging; relating.
as phyx'i a' tion, suffocation.
av' o ca' tion, pursuits; duties.
bal' dric, a girdle; a belt.
coign (koin), corner.

cur' lew, a shore-bird.

fil' lip, to snap.

gar' ish, showy; dazzling.

her'e dit' a ment, any species of prop-
erty that may be inherited.
lim' kin, a species of wading bird.

jux' ta po sition (zish' un), position side by side.

Ock la wä' ha.

or' ni thology, a branch of zoology
treating of birds.

pel lu' cid ness, transparency.
phalanx (fa), cluster of stamens.

sa laam', an Oriental salutation; a low
bow.

sau' ri an, a lizard-like reptile.
sin' u ous, curving; devious.
van' tage, position of advantage.

AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE.

ALICE CARY.

Oh, good painter, tell me true,
Has your hand the cunning to draw
Shapes of things that you never saw?
Aye? Well, here is an order for you.

Woods and corn-fields, a little brown,-
The picture must not be over bright,
Yet all in the golden and gracious light
Of a cloud, when the summer sun is down.
Alway and alway, night and morn,
Woods upon woods, with fields of corn
Lying between them, not quite sere,
And not in the full, thick, leafy bloom,
When the wind can hardly find breathing-room
Under their tassels,-cattle near,

Biting shorter the short green grass,
And a hedge of sumach and sassafras,
With bluebirds twittering all around,-

(Ah, good painter, you can't paint sound!)—

These, and the house where I was born,

Low and little, and black and old,
With children, many as it can hold,
All at the windows, open wide,
Heads and shoulders clear outside,
And fair young faces all ablush:

Perhaps you may have seen, some day,
Roses crowding the self-same way,
Out of a wilding, wayside bush.

Listen closer. When you have done

With woods and corn-fields and grazing herds,
A lady, the loveliest ever the sun

Looked down upon you must paint for me:
Oh, if I only could make you see

The clear blue eyes, the tender smile,
The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace,
The woman's soul, and the angel's face
That are beaming on me all the while,

I need not speak these foolish words: Yet one word tells you all I would say,— She is my mother: you will agree

That all the rest may be thrown away.

Two little urchins at her knee

You must paint, sir:

one like me,

The other with a clearer brow,
And the light of his adventurous eyes
Flashing with boldest enterprise:

At ten years old he went to sea,-

God knoweth if he be living now,-
He sailed in the good ship Commodore,
Nobody ever crossed her track

To bring us news, and she never came back.
Ah, it is twenty long years and more
Since that old ship went out of the bay

With my great-hearted brother on her deck :

I watched him till he shrank to a speck, And his face was toward me all the way. Bright his hair was, a golden brown,

The time we stood at our mother's knee: That beauteous head, if it did go down, Carried sunshine into the sea!

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